Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • NEWS AND VIEWS

Large-scale early Maya sites in Mexico revealed by lidar mapping technology

Archaeology is transforming our view of how ancient Maya societies developed. Use of lidar technology has now led to the discovery that large, monumental structures that aid naked-eye astronomy were built unexpectedly early.
  1. Patricia A. McAnany

    1. Patricia A. McAnany is in the Department of Anthropology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, USA.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

In archaeology, there are few watershed moments, when a technological breakthrough changes everything. But the invention of radiocarbon dating in the 1940s brought one such revolution, by providing a consistent, worldwide system for placing archaeological material in chronological order. A more-recent transformative innovation is the airborne application of a remote-sensing technique called light detection and ranging (lidar) to create a model (also known as a digital-elevation model) of the bare-surface terrain that is hidden by trees in forested areas1. Lidar is changing archaeological study of the ancient Maya in Mexico and Central America. It is increasing the speed and scale of discovery, and reshaping our understanding of the antiquity of monumental-scale landscape alteration. Writing in Nature, Inomata et al.2 provide a prime example of this in their study of the region of Tabasco in Mexico that borders the Usumacinta River.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Nature 582, 490-492 (2020)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-01570-8

References

  1. Chase, A. F., Chase, D. Z., Fisher, C. T., Leisz, S. J. & Weishampel, J. F. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 109, 12916–12921 (2012).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Inomata, T. et al. Nature 582, 530–533 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Evans, D. H. et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 110, 12595–12600 (2013).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Evans, D. J. Archaeol. Sci. 74, 164–175 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Canuto, M. A. et al. Science 361, eaau0137 (2018).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. Hare, T., Masson, M. & Russell, B. Remote Sensing 6, 9064–9085 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Hutson, S. R., Kidder, B., Lamb, C., Vallejo-Cáliz, D. & Welch, J. Adv. Archaeol. Pract. 4, 268–283 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Magnoni, A. et al. Adv. Archaeol. Pract. 4, 232–248 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Stanton, T. W. et al. J. Archaeol. Sci. Rep. 29, 102178 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Friedel, D. A., Chase, A. F., Dowd, A. S. & Murdock, J. (eds) Maya E Groups: Calendars, Astronomy, and Urbanism in the Early Lowlands (Univ. Press Florida, 2017).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Subjects

Latest on:

Nature Careers

Jobs

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing

Search

Advanced search

Quick links